Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions Death Knight Voice needs to be removed

The main character should have a voice. I know it's ME in the role of the Devine One, but now it feels as if I'm playing with a mute! He has absolutely no appeal whatsoever, which is a real shame.

The Deathknight is OK, his voice COULD be better and his humor is very bland (like the humor in the whole game, it's no Fallout!), but replacing him is not an option anymore. All in all he fits well in the game, but I don't think he is what Larian wanted him to be.

The Deathknight and the Devine One are stuck together, two opposites who have to put up which each other! This is not what I see in the current setup. The Knight seems to be OK with the Devine One and vice versa. Why not a few funny one-on-ones between deathknight and the devine one? Make it nice and snappy with a wink and a nudge... Think Monty python or buddy movies...

Yeah, well, the game is what it is, and Larian sure as hell is not going to change the voice again. I actually like the second voice, if that makes me a fanboy. I agree with the posters above who think that this topic has been overdone and are sick of reading about it. GET OVER IT!!!

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" /> If this is a remark about the fanboy/fangirl remarks I made in earlier posts it delivered the message... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

There are obviously a few people who really, really, REALLY like this game/universe and who devote a lot of time to it. This is what a fan is about but obviously calling someone a fanboy or girl has another tone to it. Maybe one shouldn't be focused so much on the possitives (makes ignoring the negatives easy) but it is not my place to place such judgement here.

Therefore:

Sorry Kiya <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/kissyou.gif" alt="" />
Sorry Fable <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/kissyou.gif" alt="" />


I was very edge because of the many bugs which made the game (I waited for so long) very annoying. With patch 1.42 I've finally come to grips with this game and I'm starting to enjoy it some more...
I will keep venting my opinions, but I will mellow down on the sharp remarks. I'm a bad, bad man and I shouldn't be allowed online... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" />

If this post is going overboard, why not letting the moderators lock it???

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" />

@ Zed

I have not played Beyond Divinity so i can't say : it is a great game or it is just a good game.
I don't know.

Some people used to critic the game since a few days in the forum and it is normal.
This game could not be completely perfect.

The critics help the Larian developper to make better games or at least games that the players really like.

Probably i will make some critics too.

But the problem is how the people critic the game.
Reading the posts in the forum, Beyond Divinity looks very awfull. If i was not a "fangirl" i will not buy it.

These posts are very bad for the future Larian games.
Beyond Divinity is going to have a very bad reputation.
The result will be less sales, less money and maybe no Divinity 2 and no secret project in the future.

[color:"yellow"]Maybe i will be disappointed playing Beyond Divinity but i would be more disappointed if there is no Divinity 2 [/color]

I hope that the people who like Larian games will understand what i am saying because my english is not good.

Barta

To Barta:

Your English is fine. I think you draw some unfair conclusions in your post, though. Maybe it is because I live in America (where everyone is a critic, mostly because no one really works or makes anything any more, so all we have to do with our time is criticize other people and other things), I have learned to take criticism in stride and let it wash off my back like water on a duck. There is a saying, "Opinions are like ***holes. Everyone's got one." So it seems with every computer game ever released.

I think you need to keep in mind that of all the people that will buy and play BD. only a very small percentage will peruse, and even fewer will post in these forums. Many of these people have already decided whether they like the game or not, either based on what someone else has told them, or by playing a few minutes of the demo, regardless of whether it has already been stated that the demo is NOT really representative of the finished game, and many things have been changed between the two.

To counter what you have said, I think that most of the posts in this forum have been positive, with people saying they like this or that feature of the game. The few "negative" posts have dealt with minor bug issues that Larian has since quickly fixed, or with design differences on the order of "If I had designed the game this is what I would've put in it or what I would have done." And many of the negative posts are repeats of the same topic, over and over. Larian may take some of those suggestions for DD2, and they may make it a better game. I think it would be a mistake to try to implement every idea, though. In the worst case, it would change the whole character of the game, and disappoint those of us who play more for the DD universe rather than for simple issues of game mechanics.

I don't think that you have to be a "fanboy" or "fangirl" to buy and appreciate the game. Hopefully people are intelligent enough to play the actual game and form their own opinions. I think the reviews from the major game sites have been generally positive, and that will influence game sales much more than a few wonky posts here ever will. The web site for every game has naysayers on it. You just have to look beyond them to see what a great game this truly is. I think Larian's (or any game company's) reputation can't be "made" or "broken" by just one game title. Whether they make enough money to satisfy their investors, if they get enough positive feedback on BD, and if they can come up with enough good ideas for and the motivation to create a new game I think will be the determining factors whether Larian makes DD2 or any other game for that matter.

What a strange, strange thread!

First we have Olaf getting a bit carried away and insisting: “Seriously, who ever cast and approved this voice needs to find a new job. Its that bad.”

Now, while I agree about the badness—what can you possibly know about who should get a new job? Was the person under incredible time and resource pressure and agreed to what ever he/she could get? Might they learn from this experience?

Never ever, suggest, even allusively that someone should be fired—you have no idea of the circumstances under which they made the decision they did.

But everyone420 makes even this somewhat over the top post seem like the height of wisdom. Apparently, anyone who cannot produce a better product should shut up, get over it, and accept what they have got.

Let me clue you in eo420, I run a business. The fact that my customers could not produce the products I sell them does not, believe it or not, make their opinions irrelevant! There is no faster way to be out of business in a hurry than to tell your customers that, since they can’t produce the product you are selling them, they should shut up.

Now personally, there is much I enjoy about Beyond Divinity. As a result, I am going to complain about what I don’t like, and not announce, which would be untrue, that I hate Larian; am going to return this game; or I will never buy a Larian product again. Instead I am going to explain something I don’t like—and frankly I don’t care how many tries they took at it—if it doesn’t make it for me, I am going to say so. Not in the hope of getting a third voiceover, but in the hope, that future games will devote more effort to the issue.

This may be shocking to you eo420, but in my business, it is results, and not effort that matters. I expect the same is true in computer gaming.

Now, buliwyf complains that a search would show that there were already many complaints of this kind. Sorry, completely irrelevant. If a company sets up a feedback forum, it is presumably because they want feedback. Further, I know in my business, it is the number of customers that have a complaint, and not the originality of the complaint that matters. If enough complain, then I realize that I have to respond, whatever my opinion.

Now, in a separate vein, I notice that some seem to think that it is odd to expect professional quality performances in game voiceovers. Well, it isn’t. Many game companies hire both well-known actors, and though less well known, highly successful, voiceover specialists with many first rate game and other voice work to their credit. Many games do not have the amateur hour feel of the DK voiceover.

Now I am not insisting my position cannot be disagreed with. I can understand people who say they though the voice was just fine. I can understand people who feel that quality voiceover isn’t where the resources should go.

However, only fanboys/fangirls insist that anyone who complains should shut up and get over it. Such comments virtually define the term fanboy in my opinion.

PS. This is a complaint about some posters. Larian is one of the most admirable firms in the business in terms of listening and responding to fans.

Why does this remind me of the Judaskiss - or Caesar and Brutus? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ouch.gif" alt="" />... and why does the Succubus of Div pop into my memory? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" /> [color:"yellow"]Zed, your sentence I quoted, could be also taken the other way around, hm?[/color] I do not ignore the negatives - if you mean bugs, real bugs (story/engine) - and I was stopped myself in a plot stopper fixed in one of the early German versions.

@to all: I do not hide my knowledge about this. But I have to agree fully with Barta => the way some posts were made (talking in general, please), the way frustration was uttered in a totally one-minded way => was unfair. Unfair towards the game and unfair towards the Devs.

And about the voice... played German version in silence (not existing) and the EV in silence, too. Why? Because speech distracts me from a game. But the uproar about voice quality/non quality - the way some phrased it and got worked up about it => made me think and shake my head in disbelief about "priorities". Is it a movie, where one watches/hears passively? Is it a game, where one has to be active?

When I remember Div discussions on the old forum => gamers nearly bashed their heads together in hot discussions about the best tactic, the best skill, the best class etc. Broken skills lead to uproar - a severe plot stopper lead to flaming par excellence. I have a good memory... and now? Wow, the "VOICE" parts the gaming world. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />
Kiya

Maybe it's my mentality - maybe it's just me trying to see both sides of the scales. Maybe it's my mentality to see a post as public, therefore minding my manners. I understand frustration very well - but isn't the way from emotion - to the brain - to typing - long enough to think and consider?

Well, I play games to immerse myself in world (hopefully) more exciting than this piece of crap I live in now. If my characters speak like a bunch of zit-covered kids at an all-night Magic game, I'm gonna get distracted.

This isn't the case, however. The death knight sounds fairly fitting to his character; a young, angry man of the purist of evils. Given <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />'s death knight sounded much, much better, but that is acceptable because he was an aged, experienced elite.

Oh, and the demo's voice for <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> was way out of line. I'm extraordinarily grateful for Larian's inputs of time and effort to please the requests of fans like myself. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Very well spoken Tiffin <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> I agree with pretty much every word you said.

Except maybe for the different-threads-about-the-same-subject topic; I think the real point of the issue is not that so many are complaining about the same subject, but rather that they're doing it in twenty different places. On an Internet forum there is simply no reason to open a new "room" to talk about a subject people are already talking about. The Larians would still get an idea of the number of, for example, DK voice complaints, if they were all vented in one thread.
Of course, since we're only humans, this is never gonna happen. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

I very much agree with this point in particular:

It may sound hard, but it's true. They don't hand out Oscars because the movie makers "tried very hard" (ok, Oscars may not be the greatest example <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ). They don't praise Mozart because of the time and effort he put into his work (ok, partly, they do <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> ). The point is, if something, be it a part of a work or the whole thing in general, is not state of the art, there is nothing wrong with people criticizing it. But then we get to the point Barta was making: some people just don't know the difference between criticizing and bashing. And if there'd be anything that bothered me in threads like these, it's those big mouth people who have no clue what the word respect means.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cry.gif" alt="" /> I'm very sorry you don't like my real life voice! I'll tell Lynn, maybe we can still fix it for <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> 2 even though I had already recorded all the lines for the main guy (actually we're not that far, um, yet). But I thought it sounded good, and I'm proud of the way I sound!

Well... uh... if it's possible, have the DDiv DK return for the DK in DDiv2 <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

That was a good voice.

They'd have had to record two hero voices, a male and a female. Which means they'd have had to get an actual female voice actor in there.

I agree with you about the Death Knight. He's really not the monstrous travesty everyone's making him out to be. Personally I'd like to see all the typos in text boxes fixed, too, but we can all live with it the way it is so why be uptight?

And a child voice actor too !

For the child voice actor there would be no problem about it because Lews has already recorded all the dialogs
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />

I happen to think that DK's voice is right for what he is.
Void of emotion and anything human.
I think a DK should sound hollow and empty and he does.
I have no problem with it at all

Archlil <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

<span class='standouttext'>Spoiler : </span><span class='spoiler'> For the child voice actor there would be no problem about it because Lews has already recorded all the dialogs
</span> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> how'd you know?



WAHOO!!! *sorry, a song I'm listening too has WAHOO! in it. *

but I

WAHOO

think that if Larian needs a kid voice, they should call me up and ask me to record a few lines. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> I'd do it no charge. or ALMOST no charge, I mean, I'd need to get my name in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> 2 <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

WAHOO

I just read this somewhere <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

DANG IT! I KNEW I shouldn't have posted that...

I actually LIKE the voices in the game, except for the imps. I know they're supposed to sound like that, but.... eh.

Whee. Thank you. This will sound brutal, but folks, face it -- for the mean, heartless mass of consumers, crap is crap, and it won't matter how much effort was put into it.

I think I must be one of the very few people who actually liked the DK's voice in the demo. I mean, no one ever complains, say, about the voice of HK-47 in KotOR, do they? And HK's voice is about as matter-of-fact as you get, even though he's a homicidal, meatbag-blasting droid -- in short, the comic-relief evil sidekick.

And I agree; the DK's voice in the retail version is just... dear gods, it makes my ears bleed and scream for mercy. I don't understand why all the dialogue outside the Battlefields absolutely has to be voiceacted. It's great when -- no offense intended -- you have the budget to hire voiceactors who know what they're doing, but with limited budget, the dialogue might as well have been silent.

Well, that's the fate of those who complained, cynically speaking. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />


Let this be a lesson for everyone for the next complaint ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/exclamation.gif" alt="" />


By the way, on a small Star Wars Convention I watched an actor playing the role of Darth Vader - only with his voice.

How did he do it ? He directed his voice into a big, round vase !

The effect was stunning : It reminded us so much of Darth Vader ... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />

And next to him stood Michael Sheard in in his role as Admiral Ozzel ... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />